A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
Kelley Mondesire, DAOM, AP, LAc
Dr. Kelley Mondesiré, a graduate of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, is a Rhode Island, Florida and New York board-certified practitioner of TCM with advanced education in orthopedic/sports medicine, gynecology and pelvic floor disorders. She is also a referred TCM health care provider of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. For more information, visit https://kelleymondesire.com.